reading e

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

First published in 1651. These extracts are taken from the edition prepared by
Jonathan Bennett. Available at http://www.earlymoderntexts.com.

c h a p t e r 13. t h e nat ural co nd iti on o f man kin d as con ce r ni ng

t h e i r h a p pi ne ss a n d mis e ry

Nature has made men so equal in their physical and mental capacities that, al-
though sometimes we may find one man who is obviously stronger in body or
quicker of mind than another, yet taking all in all the diVerence between one and
another is not so great that one man can claim to have any advantage ·of strength
or skill or the like· that can’t just as well be claimed by some others. As for •strength
of body: the weakest man is strong enough to kill the strongest, either by a secret
plot or by an alliance with others who are in the same danger that he is in.
As for •the faculties of the mind: I find that men are even more equal in these
than they are in bodily strength. (In this discussion I set aside skills based on
words, and especially the skill – known as ‘science’ – of being guided by general
and infallible rules. Very few people have this, and even they don’t have it with
respect to many things. I am setting it aside because it isn’t a natural faculty that
we are born with, nor is it something that we acquire – as we acquire prudence
– while looking for something else.) Prudence is simply experience; and men will
get an equal amount of that in an equal period of time spent on things that they
equally apply themselves to. What may make such equality incredible is really just
one’s vain sense of one’s own wisdom, which •most men think they have more of
than the common herd – that is, more than anyone else except for a few others
whom they value because of their fame or because of their agreement with them.
It’s just a fact about human nature that however much a man may acknowledge
many others to be more •witty, or more •eloquent, or more •learned than he is, he
won’t easily believe that many men are as •wise as he is; for he sees his own wisdom
close up, and other men’s at a distance. This, however, shows the equality of men
rather than their inequality. For ordinarily there is no greater sign that something
is equally distributed than that every man is contented with his share!
136 Thomas Hobbes r e ad i ng e

·Competition·: This equality of ability produces equality of hope for the attain-
ing of our goals. So if any two men want a single thing which they can’t both enjoy,
they become enemies; and each of them on the way to his goal (which is princi-
pally his own survival, though sometimes merely his delight) tries to destroy or
subdue the other. And so it comes about that when someone has through farming
and building come to possess a pleasant estate, if an invader would have nothing
to fear but that one man’s individual power, there will probably be an invader –
someone who comes with united forces to deprive him not only of the fruit of his
labour but also of his life or liberty. And the ·successful· invader will then be in
similar danger from someone else.
·Distrust·: Because of this distrust amongst men, the most reasonable way for
any man to make himself safe is to strike first, that is, by force or cunning sub-
due other men – as many of them as he can, until he sees no other power great
enough to endanger him. This is no more than what he needs for his own sur-
vival, and is generally allowed. ·And it goes further than you might think·. Some
people take pleasure in contemplating their own power in the acts of conquest,
pursuing them further than their security requires, ·and this increases the security
needs of others·. People who would otherwise be glad to be at ease within modest
bounds have to increase their power by further invasions, because without that, in
a purely defensive posture, they wouldn’t be able to survive for long. This increase
in a man’s power over others ought to be allowed to him, as it is necessary to his
survival.
·Glory·: Every man wants his associates to value him as highly as he values
himself; and any sign that he is disregarded or undervalued naturally leads a man
to try, as far as he dares, to raise his value in the eyes of others. For those who have
disregarded him, he does this by violence; for others, by example. I say ‘as far as
he dares’; but when there is no common power to keep them at peace, ‘as far as he
dares’ is far enough to make them destroy each other. That is why men don’t get
pleasure (and indeed do get much grief ) from being in the company of other men
without there being a power that can over-awe them all.
So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of discord. First
•competition, secondly •distrust, thirdly •glory.
The first makes men invade for •gain; the second for •safety; and the third
for •reputation. The first use violence to make themselves masters of other men’s
persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second use it to defend them·selves and
their families and property·; the third use it for trifles – a word, a smile, a diVerent
opinion, and any other sign of a low regard for them personally, if not directly
then obliquely through a disrespectful attitude to their family, their friends, their
nation, their profession, or their name.
This makes it obvious that for as long as men live without a common power
to keep them all in awe, they are in the condition known as ‘war’; and it is a war of
every man against every man. For wa r doesn’t consist just in •battle or the act of
r e a d i ng e Thomas Hobbes 137

fighting, but in •a period of time during which it is well enough known that people
are willing to join in battle. So the temporal element in the notion of ‘when there is
war’ is like the temporal element in ‘when there is bad weather’. What constitutes
bad weather is not a rain-shower or two but an inclination to rain through many
days together; similarly, what constitutes war is not actual fighting but a known
disposition to fight during a time when there is no assurance to the contrary. All
other time is pe ac e.
Therefore, whatever results from •a time of war, when every man is enemy to
every man, also results from •a time when men live with no other security but what
their own strength and ingenuity provides them with. In such conditions there is

no place for hard work, because there is no assurance that it will yield
results; and consequently no cultivation of the earth, no navigation
or use of materials that can be imported by sea, no construction of
large buildings, no machines for moving things that require much
force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no
practical skills, no literature or scholarship, no society; and – worst of
all – continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

It may seem strange to you, if you haven’t thought hard about these things, that
nature should thus separate men from one another and make them apt to invade
and destroy one another. So perhaps you won’t trust my derivation of this account
from the nature of the passions, and will want to have the account confirmed by
experience. Well, then, think about how you behave: when going on a journey,
you arm yourself, and try not to go alone; when going to sleep, you lock your
doors; even inside your own house you lock your chests; and you do all this when
you know that there are laws, and armed public oYcers of the law, to revenge any
harms that are done to you. Ask yourself: what opinion do you have of your fellow
subjects when you ride armed? Of your fellow citizens when you lock your doors?
Of your children and servants when you lock your chests? In all this, don’t you
accuse mankind as much by your actions as I do by my words? Actually, neither of
us is criticising man’s nature. The desires and other passions of men aren’t sinful
in themselves. Nor are actions that come from those passions, until those who act
know a law that forbids them; they can’t know this until laws are made; and they
can’t be made until men agree on the person who is to make them. But why try to
demonstrate to learned men something that is known even to dogs who bark at
visitors – sometimes indeed only at strangers but in the night at everyone?
It may be thought that there has never been such a time, such a condition of
war as this; and I believe it was never generally like this all over the world. Still,
there are many places where people live like that even now. For the savage people
in many parts of America have no government at all except for the government of
small families, whose harmony depends on natural lust. Those savages live right
138 Thomas Hobbes r e ad i ng e

now in the brutish manner I have described. Anyway, we can see what way of life
there would be if there were no common power to fear, from the degenerate way
of life into which civil war has led men who had formerly lived under a peaceful
government.
Even if there had never been any time at which •individual men were in a state
of war one against another, this is how •kings, and persons of sovereign authority
relate to one another at all times. Because of their independence from one an-
other, they are in continual mutual jealousies. Like gladiators, with their •weapons
pointing and their •eyes fixed on one another, sovereigns have •forts, garrisons,
and guns on the frontiers of their kingdoms, and permanent •spies on their neigh-
bours – this is a posture of war, as much as the gladiators’ is. But because in this
the sovereigns uphold the economy of their nations, their state of war doesn’t lead
to the sort of misery that occurs when individual men are at liberty ·from laws and
government·.
In this war of every man against every man nothing can be unjust. The notions
of right and wrong, justice and injustice have no place there. Where there is no
common power, there is no law; and where there is no law, there is no injustice. In
war the two chief virtues are force and fraud. Justice and injustice are not among
the faculties [here = ‘natural capacities’] of the body or of the mind. If they were,
they could be in a man who was alone in the world, as his senses and passions
can. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude. A further fact
about the state of war of every man against every man: in it there is no such thing
as ownership, no legal control, no distinction between mine and thine. Rather,
anything that a man can get is his for as long as he can keep it.
So much for the poor condition that man is actually placed in by mere •nature;
but ·as I now go on to explain·, he can extricate himself from it, partly through his
•passions, partly through his •reason.
The passions that incline men to peace are •fear of death, •desire for things that
are necessary for comfortable living, and a •hope to obtain these by hard work.
And reason suggests convenient items in a peace treaty that men may be got to
agree on. These items are the ones that in other contexts are called the Laws of
Nature. I shall have more to say about them in the two following chapters.

c ha p t e r 1 4. t h e fi rst a n d se co nd natu ra l l aws , a nd con tracts

The r ig h t of nat u re, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty
that each man has to make his own decisions about how to use his own power
for the preservation of his own nature – i.e. his own life – and consequently ·the
liberty· of doing anything that he thinks is the aptest means to that end. [The Latin
phrase jus naturale standardly meant ‘natural law’; but jus could mean ‘right’, and
Hobbes is clearly taking the phrase to mean ‘natural right’.]
The proper meaning of li b e rt y is the absence of external obstacles. Such
r e a d i ng e Thomas Hobbes 139

obstacles can often take away part of a man’s power to do what he wants, but they
can’t get in the way of his using his remaining power in obedience to his judgment
and reason.
A l aw of nat u r e (lex naturalis) is a command or general rule, discovered
by reason, which forbids a man to •do anything that is destructive of his life or
takes away his means for preserving his life, and forbids him to •omit anything
by which he thinks his life can best be preserved. For although those who speak
of this subject commonly run together right and law (jus and lex), they ought to
be distinguished. Ri g h t consists in the liberty to do or not do ·as one chooses·,
whereas l aw picks on one of them – either doing or not doing – and commands
it. So law diVers from right as much as obligation diVers from liberty – which ·are
so diVerent that· it would be inconsistent to suppose that a person had both liberty
and an obligation in respect of the same action.
As I said in chapter 13, the condition of man is a condition of war of everyone
against everyone, so that everyone is governed by his own reason and can make use
of anything he likes that might help him to preserve his life against his enemies.
From this it follows that in such a condition every man has a right to everything –
even to someone else’s body. As long as this continues, therefore – that is, as long
as every man continues to have this natural right to everything – no man, however
strong or clever he may be, can be sure of living out the time that nature ordinarily
allows men to live. And consequently it is a command or general rule of reason that
•every man ought to seek peace, as far as he has any hope of obtaining it; and that
•when he can’t obtain it he may seek and use all helps and advantages of war. •The
first branch of this rule contains the first law of nature – the fundamental one –
which is this:

Fi rst l aw o f nat u re : Seek peace and follow it.

•The second branch contains in summary form the right of nature, which is the
right to defend ourselves by any means we can.
From this fundamental law of nature, by which men are commanded to seek
peace, is derived this second law:

S e con d l aw o f nat u re : When a man thinks that peace and self-defence re-
quire it, he should be willing (when others are too) to lay down his right
to everything, and should be contented with as much liberty against other
men as he would allow other men against himself.

For as long as every man maintains his right to do anything he likes, all men are
in the condition of war. But if other men won’t also lay down their right, there is
no reason for him to divest himself of his; for ·if he alone gave up his rights· that
would be to expose himself to predators (which no man is obliged to do) rather
than to dispose himself to peace. This is the law of the Gospel:

Whatever you require others to do to you, do it to them.

140 Thomas Hobbes r e ad i ng e

And this law of all men:

Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris – ·Don’t do to others what you
don’t want done to you·.

[In the interests of clarity, the next paragraph is written in terms of ‘I and ‘you’,
replacing Hobbes’s ‘a man’ and ‘another’.]
For me to lay down my right to something is for me to deprive myself of the
liberty of blocking you (for instance) from getting the benefit of your right to
the same thing. In renouncing or giving up my right I don’t give anyone else a
right that he didn’t previously have, because every man has a right by nature to
everything. All I do ·in renouncing my own right· is to stand out of your way, so
that you can enjoy your own original right without interference from me; but you
may still be impeded by some third person. Thus, the eVect on you of my lacking
a certain right is just a lessening of hindrances to your exercise of your original
right.
A man can lay aside a right either by simply renouncing it or by transferring
it to someone else. He r en ou n c e s it when he doesn’t care who gets the benefit.
He t ra n sf er s it when he intends the benefit to go to some particular person
or persons. And when a man has deprived himself of a right in either of those
ways – abandoning it or giving it away – he is said to be o bli ge d or b ou nd
not to hinder those to whom such right is given or abandoned from having the
benefit of it; and ·it is said· that he ought, and that it is his d u t y, not to deprive
that voluntary act of his of its eVectiveness; and ·if he does so·, that hindrance is
·what we call· i nj u st i c e and i n j ury. [The word ‘injury’ comes from ‘in-’ as a
negater and jure which is Latin for ‘right’. Hobbes gives this explanation in com-
pact form.] So that •injury or injustice in the controversies of the world is a little
like •absurdity in the disputations of scholars. For as scholars call it ‘absurdity’ to
contradict what one maintained at the outset, so in the world it is called ‘injus-
tice’ and ‘injury’ voluntarily to undo something that one had voluntarily done at
the outset. How a man either renounces or transfers a right is by a declaration or
indication – using some voluntary and suYcient sign or signs – that he does or
did renounce or transfer the right to the person who accepts it. And these signs
are either words only, or actions only, or (as most often happens) both words and
actions. Those ·words and/or actions· are the b on ds by which men are bound
and obliged: bonds whose strength comes not from their own nature (for nothing
is more easily broken than a man’s word) but from fear of some bad consequence
of their being broken.
Whenever a man transfers or renounces a right, he does so either in consid-
eration of some right reciprocally transferred to himself or for some other good
he hopes to get from what he is doing. For it is a voluntary act, and the goal of
the voluntary acts of every man is some good to himself. It follows that there are
some rights that no man can be taken to have abandoned or transferred, no matter
r e a d i ng e Thomas Hobbes 141

what words or other signs he uses . First and foremost: a man cannot lay down the
right of resisting those who bring force against him to take away his life, because
he couldn’t be understood to be doing that with the aim of getting some good for
himself. The same may be said of wounds, and chains, and imprisonment; both
because •there is no benefit to be got from putting up with such things, as there
is ·or may be· to be got from allowing someone else to be wounded or imprisoned;
and also because •when a man sees others coming against him by violence, he can’t
tell whether they intend his death or not. ·There is also a third reason·. Lastly, the
point of the procedure of renouncing and transferring rights – the motive and
purpose for which it exists – is simply to preserve a man’s security in his person,
in his life, and in his means for preserving his life in a manner that won’t make
him weary of it. So •if a man by words or other signs seems to deprive himself of
the very thing for which those signs were intended, he should not be understood
to have meant it; rather, we should take it that he was ignorant of how such words
and actions ought to be interpreted.
The mutual transferring of a right is what men call a co ntrac t.
[. . . ]
A covenant not to defend myself from force by force is always void. The reason
for this is something I explained earlier. The avoidance of death, wounds, and im-
prisonment is the only purpose for laying down any right; so nobody can transfer
or give up his right to save himself from death, wounds, and imprisonment; and
so a promise not to resist force doesn’t transfer any right and is not binding. A
man can make this covenant:

Unless I do such and such, kill me;

but he cannot make this one:

Unless I do such and such, I won’t resist you when you come to kill
me.

For man by nature chooses the lesser evil, which is the danger of death from resist-
ing, rather than the greater, which is certain and present death from not resisting.
Everyone accepts this, as is shown by their leading criminals to execution or to
prison with armed guards, despite the fact that the criminals have consented to
the law under which they are condemned.
A covenant to accuse oneself, without assurance of pardon, is likewise invalid.
For in the condition of nature where every man is a judge, there is no place for
accusation, ·so the question doesn’t arise there·; and in the civil state the accusation
is followed by punishment, and because that is force, a man is not obliged give
in to it. The same is also true of the accusation of those whose condemnation
would put a man into misery ·and who are presumed to be strongly well- disposed
towards him· (such as a father, wife, or benefactor). For if the testimony of such
an accuser is not willingly given, it is presumed to be corrupted by nature, and
142 Thomas Hobbes r e ad i ng e

therefore not to be believed; and where a man’s testimony is not to be credited,

he is not bound to give it. Also accusations made under torture should not be
regarded as testimonies. For torture should be used only as a way of getting ideas
and leads for the further search for truth; and what is said under torture tends to
the ease of the person being tortured, not to the informing of the torturers; and so
it ought not to be accepted as a suYcient testimony; for whether the accusations
through which he relieves his own situation are true or false, in bringing them he
is exercising his right to preserve his own life.
[. . . ]

c ha p t e r 17. t h e c aus es , c r e ati on, and d e f in iti on o f a co mmo n-

w ealt h

Men naturally love liberty, and dominion over others; so what is the final cause or
end or design they have in mind when they introduce the restraint upon themselves
under which we see them live in commonwealths? It is the prospect of their own
preservation and, through that, of a more contented life; that is to say, of getting
themselves out of the miserable condition of war which (as I have shown) neces-
sarily flows from the natural passions of men when there is no visible power to
keep them in awe and tie them by fear of punishment to keep their covenants and
to obey the laws of nature set down in my chapters 14 and 15.
[. . . ]
The •only way to establish a common power that can defend them from the
invasion of foreigners and the injuries of one another, and thereby make them
secure enough to be able to nourish themselves and live contentedly through their
own labours and the fruits of the earth, is •to confer all their power and strength
on one man, or one assembly of men, so as to turn all their wills by a majority
vote into a single will. That is to say: •to appoint one man or assembly of men to
bear their person; and everyone •to own and acknowledge himself to be the author
of every act that he who bears their person performs or causes to be performed in
matters concerning the common peace and safety, and all of them •to submit their
wills to his will, and their judgments to his judgment. [Hobbes explains the key
concepts of that sentence early in Chapter 16.] This is more than ·mere· agreement
or harmony; it is a real unity of them all. They are unified in that they constitute
one single person, created through a covenant of every man with every ·other·
man, as though each man were to say to each of the others:
I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or
to this assembly of men, on condition that you surrender to him your
right of governing yourself, and authorize all his actions in the same
way.
[Rather than ‘you’ and ‘your’, Hobbes here uses ‘thou’ and ‘thy’ – the second-
person singular, rare in Leviathan – emphasizing the one-on-one nature of the
r e a d i ng e Thomas Hobbes 143

covenant.] When this is done, the multitude so united in one person is called a
com mon w e a lt h, in Latin c i vi tas. This is the method of creation of that
great l ev i at h a n, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that mortal god to
which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this au-
thority that has been given to him by every individual man in the commonwealth,
he has conferred on him the use of so much power and strength that people’s fear
of it enables him to harmonize and control the wills of them all, to the end of
peace at home and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. He is the essence of
the commonwealth, which can be defined thus:

A commonwealth is one person of whose acts a great multitude of

people have made themselves the authors (each of them an author),
doing this by mutual covenants with one another, so that he may use
the strength and means of them all, as he shall think appropriate, for
their peace and common defence.

He who carries this person is called s ove r e i gn, and said to have ‘sovereign
power’, and all the others are his s u bj e cts.
[. . . ]

c h a p t e r 2 1. t h e l i b ert y o f s u bj e cts

[. . . ]
We come now to details concerning the true liberty of a subject, that is to
say, what the things are that a subject may without injustice refuse to do when
commanded to do them by the sovereign. To grasp the answer to this, we must
consider •what rights we relinquish when we make a commonwealth, or (the same
thing) •what liberty we deny ourselves by owning all the actions – all without
exception – of the man or assembly we make our sovereign. For our •obligation
·to obey· and our •liberty ·not to obey· both reside in our act of submission; so
the extent of •each must be inferred from the act of submission, because no man
has any obligation that doesn’t arise from some act of his own, for all men are by
nature free. Such inferences must rely either on •the explicit words ‘I authorize
all his actions’ or on •his intention in submitting himself to the sovereign’s power
(which intention is to be understood from the purpose for which he submits). So
the obligation and the liberty of the subject are to be derived either from •those
words or others equivalent to them, or else from •the purpose of the institution of
sovereignty, which is the peace of the subjects among themselves and their defence
against a common enemy.
First therefore, seeing that sovereignty by institution is by covenant of every-
one to everyone, and that sovereignty by acquisition is by covenants of the van-
quished to the victor or of the child to the parent, it is obvious that every sub-
ject has liberty in respect of anything the right to which cannot be transferred by
144 Thomas Hobbes r e ad i ng e

covenant. I showed in chapter 14 that covenants not to defend one’s own body are
void. Therefore,
If the sovereign commands a man to kill, wound, or maim himself, or not to
resist those who assault him, or to abstain from the use of food, air, medicine, or
anything else that he needs in order to live, that man has the liberty to disobey,
even if he has been justly condemned ·to death·.
If a man is interrogated by the sovereign, or by someone acting on his behalf,
concerning a crime the man has committed, he is not bound (unless promised a
pardon) to confess it, because as I showed in chapter 14 no man can be obliged by
covenant to accuse himself.
Again, the subject’s consent to sovereign power is contained in the words ‘I
authorize or take upon me all his actions’, and these contain no restriction at all of
his own former natural liberty. For by allowing him to kill me I am not bound to
kill myself when he orders me to do so. It is one thing to say ‘Kill me, or my fellow,
if you please’ and another thing to say ‘I will kill myself, or my fellow’. So it follows
that
No man is bound •by the words themselves to kill either himself or any other
man; so the obligation that a man may sometimes have to do something dangerous
or dishonourable when ordered to by the sovereign, depends not on •the words of
our submission but on •the intention ·with which we submit·, and that is to be
inferred from the purpose of the submission. Therefore: when our refusal to obey
frustrates the purpose for which the sovereignty was ordained, then there is no
liberty to refuse; otherwise there is.
Upon this ground, a man who is commanded as a soldier to fight against the
enemy – even if his sovereign has the right to punish his refusal with death – may in
many cases refuse without injustice. An example is when he substitutes a suYcient
soldier in his place; for in this case he doesn’t desert the service of the common-
wealth. And allowance should be made for natural timidity not only of women
(from whom no such dangerous duty is expected) but also of men of feminine
courage. When armies fight, there is a running away on one side or on both; but
when they run not out of treachery but out of fear, they are thought to act dishon-
ourably but not unjustly. By the same reasoning, avoiding battle is cowardice but
not injustice. But someone who enrols himself as a soldier, or accepts an advance
on his pay, can no longer plead the excuse of a timorous nature; he is obliged not
only to go into battle but also not to run from it without his captain’s permission.
And when the defence of the commonwealth requires the simultaneous help of all
citizens, each person who can either bear arms or contribute something, however
little, to victory, is obliged to undertake military service; because otherwise it was
pointless for them to institute commonwealth – one that they haven’t the purpose
or courage to preserve.
No man has liberty to resist the sword of the commonwealth in defence of an-
other man, whether he is guilty or innocent, because such a liberty would detract
r e a d i ng e Thomas Hobbes 145

from the sovereign’s means for protecting us, and would therefore be destructive
of the very essence of government. But if a great many men have all together al-
ready unjustly resisted the sovereign power or committed some capital crime for
which each expects death, do they have the liberty to join together and assist and
defend one another? Certainly they have; for they are only defending their lives,
which the guilty man is as entitled to do as the innocent. There was indeed in-
justice in their first breach of duty; ·but· their bearing of arms subsequent to it,
although it is to maintain what they have ·unjustly· done, is not a further unjust
act. And if it is only to defend their own persons it is not unjust at all. But an oVer
of pardon takes the plea of self-defence away from those to whom it is made, and
renders unlawful their perseverance in helping or defending one another.